BILL OF PORTLAND 175 



10,000 guineas, even in those days, had he been sound, but 

 being a bad roarer he was bought for the 1000 guineas. 



It is common knowledge now that Bill of Portland 

 made an immense success at the stud in Australia 

 from the very first, getting the best of the year in 

 each of his first three seasons, and his sons have 

 carried on successfully after him, more particularly 

 Maltster; but this brilliant result was on the whole 

 injurious to Australasian blood stock. Breeders there 

 knew that Bill of Portland had been bought cheaply, 

 and without assimilating my advice to Mr Wilson as 

 to the sine qua non of class, even if unsound, rather 

 than sound mediocrities, they hastened to buy numbers 

 of cheap stallions with specious pedigrees, regardless 

 of whether they had ever shown any form or not. 

 Thus they have contrived in the last twenty-five years 

 to greatly depreciate their own stout old lines of blood, 

 and to produce animals which are readily beaten by 

 second-class importations from England. 



It is on record that in the earlier times importations 

 from Australia to England, such as Maluma, Merman, 

 Mons Meg, The Grafter, Newhaven, Georgic, Australian 

 Star and others, were more than equal to holding their 

 own in this country, but none of them were by the cheap 

 and flashy sires which the Bill of Portland fashion 

 brought into vogue. 



The mistake was in not understanding that Bill of 

 Portland was really a horse of the highest class, and 

 that as he did not transmit his infirmity to his stock 

 his success was, or should have been, easy to under- 

 stand ; but it was not, and there was a rush from 

 that time forth to buy cheap stallions, with most 

 unfortunate results, 



